Industry IQ: Snap Inc. Valued Above $30B After IPO

Snap Shares Begin Trading More Than 40% Higher Than Original IPO

Last Thursday Snapchat’s parent company, Snap Inc, made it’s debut as a publicly traded company on the NYSE for 17$ a share. Snap faired quite well: at it’s peak selling for 25$ a share. The extremely high demand for Snap’s shares made it the largest tech IPO since Alibaba in 2014. Campfire Capital reports that Snap is now valued at $30 billion; in comparison, Twitter is worth around $11 billion. Snap Inc’s IPO was long awaited in the financial tech scene, with investors and Wall Street alike looking to the results for an idea of how similar tech IPOs will perform this year. Though it had an excellent start, Business Insider reported that Snap shares fell today for the first time since it’s IPO. Despite the recent fluctuation there is no denying the influence Snap is having on the digital/marketing/consumer technology industries.

Yelp has acquired Nowait, a company founded out of Pittsburgh in 2010 that integrates it’s technology with restaurants to streamline and accelerate the waitlist process reports VentureBeat. Yelp had previously invested 8 million in the company in August; the $40 million price tag includes that stake. The partnership serves to help Yelp users make seamless reservations and queue for waitlists all within the Yelp app, minimizing any action a consumer has to take to complete their transactions outside of Yelp. Nowait is already live in 4 000 restaurants across the US and Canada – this partnership fast tracks Yelp directly into this action.

Google Trusted Stores Program Shuts Down

Google has begun notifying Trusted Stores merchants that the program will soon wind down, and in it’s place will be Google Customer Reviews. Marketing Land reports that merchants currently in Trusted Stores will have their accounts migrated to the newly launched Customer Reviews. The new program is also free but not a certification program. New merchants will need to be approved by Google to get access to the tool.

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